Uri Party Set to More Limits on Public Officials’ Stock Ownership

The ruling Uri Party has decided to revise the law on trusteeship of stocks owned by senior officials, which will be introduced by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, to lower the ceiling of the value of their stock ownership that should be placed in trust to 20-30 million won from an initially proposed 100 million won.

“Although there are proposals stating that it needs more than a 100 million-won ceiling for a trustee’s profitability, the law will then only affect a very few,” an Uri Party senior official said, “In order for the legislation to achieve its goals, we need to lower the ceiling.”

The Uri Party is reviewing negligence clauses for the trustee law to ban government officials who own stock valued less than the trusteeship-triggering ceiling from using information they learned from their jobs in investing in stocks. Once the law takes effect early next year, many more government officials will have to place their stocks in trust

About 230 Level 4 civil servants have more than 100 million won in stocks, about 190 have 50 million-100 million won worth of stocks, 349 have 20-30 million won, and 1,004 have less than 20 million won, said the Public Servants’ Ethnic Commission.

Regarding allegations that there should be a proviso or a grace period for elected officials and lawmakers, the Uri Party said, “That will invoke the issue of fairness and compromise the very goals of the legislation.” It won’t introduce the proviso.

The government plans to submit a revised bill to the National Assembly after the approval at a Cabinet meeting.

“As our retracting of a campaign pledge for the law which requires public disclosure of the cost of public apartments is criticized as a sign of a weakening reform drive, we will aggressively implement other campaign pledges as a way to pursuing reforms,” a policymaker at the Uri Party said.

Hoon Lee dreamland@donga.com